THE DEPARTURE OF SIR JOHN POLLEXFEN.
But now the day was drawing near which had been fixed by Sir John
Pollexfen in his will as that on which his body should be committed to
the vault where the bones of several generations of his ancestors
already reposed. Sir John would soon have been dead twenty years. On
the twentieth anniversary of his decease, his body would leave Dupley
Walls for ever.
That this day had long been looked forward to by Lady Pollexfen, Janet
was well aware.
The fierce old woman had often declared that not till the dead body of
her husband should be removed from Dupley Walls, would the curse that
had rested on the house from the day of his death be lifted off it,
and rendered powerless for further harm.
In one of the galleries was a portrait of Sir John, which during the
last twelve months had been visited daily by Lady Pollexfen. Every
time she visited it, she made a practice of sticking a pin through
some part of the figure, and leaving it there.
"One day less, Sir John, before the worms claim you as their own," was
her usual remark on these occasions.
And then she would nod her head and jeer at the painted semblance of
her dead husband.
"We shall have quite a little jubilee the day you leave us, by which
you may judge how grieved we shall be to part from you. Another pin.
Oh! that you could feel them, and that I could thus repay you in part
for some of the thousands of heart-aches you caused me when you were
alive!"
After she began to recover from the state of mental and bodily
prostration into which she had sunk when no longer sustained by the
excitement consequent on the search for the Diamond, she was not long
before she was about again, apparently as well and strong as she had
been for the last year or two. But to Janet it seemed that much of her
strength was factitious, and that it did not arise from any real
improvement in her health, but rather from the necessity which seemed
to sit so heavily upon her of being up and doing on the day of Sir
John's departure. To be lying weak and ill in bed on such a day would
have seemed like an acknowledgment of regret for the departure of her
husband to which her proud spirit could by no means submit.
She spoke nothing but the truth when she said that she so thoroughly
detested the memory of the man, that it would be a day of jubilee for
her when his body was borne out of her sight for ever.
She was probably influenced in her determination by another reason,
but one which she would have been slow to acknowledge even to herself.
Her mind was powerfully impressed with the idea, that not only was the
lifeless body of her husband under the roof of Dupley Walls, but that
the house was haunted by his incorporeal presence; that, in fact, his
spirit was doomed to wander unrestingly in and about the old house so
long as his body--in accordance with his own foolish wish--remained
unburied and unsanctified by the rites of Christian sepulture.
Hence the strange habit into which she had fallen of addressing her
husband as though he were standing, an invisible presence, close by
her elbow, and was cognizant of all she said.
It could not be other than a source of satisfaction to Janet to know
that her midnight visits to the Black Room were so soon to come to an
end. The duty she had there to perform was one which not even the
custom of years could have rendered otherwise than distasteful to her.
She never could quite conquer the superstitious thrill which touched
her from head to foot every time she opened the door of the dreaded
room. She never could quite get over the feeling that an unseen pair
of eyes was watching her from behind the funereal drapery that clothed
the walls. She could never descend the stairs on her way back to the
habitable regions of the house without a nervous shiver at the thought
that perhaps some shadowy hand was being put forth to clutch her from
behind, Janet could not, therefore, be otherwise than pleased to think
that the silent tenant of Dupley Walls would so soon have to find
another and a more permanent home.
Lady Pollexfen had named the date a month beforehand which was fixed
for the removal of Sir John.
At length the last midnight arrived. Janet had been reading to her
ladyship, and when the clock pointed to five minutes to twelve she
shut the book and rose to go.
"I will go with you to-night," said her ladyship, who to all
appearance had been dozing for the last half hour, although Janet had
not on that account been allowed to lay down her book.
So arm-in-arm the two went slowly up the long staircases with many a
halt to gather breath. At length the door of the Black Room was
reached and opened. Preceded by her ladyship Janet went in. While she
went about her customary duty, Lady Pollexfen stood sternly erect,
resting her crossed hands on the head of her cane, and gazing with
hard unmoved countenance on the coffin of her dead husband.
Janet in her twilight walk through the garden a few hours previously
had found a couple of late roses. These she had plucked and had
fastened them into the bosom of her dress: she now took them out of
her dress, and laid them reverently on the coffin.
"What are you about, child?" cried Lady Pollexfen in her most
imperious tones. "Flowers are not for such as he. Take them away. For
him you should bring the deadly nightshade and hemlock, and all plants
that are hurtful to human life. There are some men, child, that, like
the fatal upas tree, have power to blight and poison all who come
within their influence. Such a man was he who is nailed up in that
box. He blighted my life; he poisoned my son's life, and drove him
abroad to die in a strange land; he withered the lives of my two
daughters, and not content with the evil which he did while living, he
left his dead body as a curse that should haunt my life for twenty
wretched years. That term is now at an end, and after to-morrow I
shall grow twenty years younger, feeling and knowing that neither in
time nor in eternity will his baneful presence ever haunt me again."
Suddenly she clutched Janet by the arm, and drew the girl closer to
her. "He is there!" she said--"there, behind the black curtains,
watching me, listening to every word that I say--as he used to watch
and listen when he was alive. There is the same meanness, the same low
trickery about him now that he is dead that marked him when he was
living. He often visits me--often talks to me--and although he will
not acknowledge it, I know that when once his body shall be laid in
the vault at Dene Folly, I shall have seen and spoken with him for the
last time. To-night, child, you must sit by my bedside all night long,
and read aloud from some godly book. Then he will have no power to
come near me or harm me. But you must not go to sleep nor cease your
reading till you see the first streaks of daylight in the east: after
that we are safe. I said he was there. See how yonder curtain stirs
and flutters. He will not show himself because you are here. It is
only I, I who was his miserable wife for twenty-three long years, that
he cares to torment. But come. Let us tarry here no longer. This is
his last night, thank heaven! beneath the roof of Dupley Walls."
They went downstairs together as they had come, arm-in-arm, her
ladyship shaking her head and mumbling to herself all the way as she
went. Then she got into bed, and Janet sat by her side all night,
reading aloud from a "godly book," while the old woman lay without
stirring, with wide-staring solemn eyes that seemed to be gazing on
some far-away picture, the subject of which was known to herself
alone.
To Mr. Madgin was entrusted the charge of conveying the body of Sir
John Pollexfen to its final resting-place at Dene Folly, forty miles
away; and Mr. Madgin was to be the sole "mourner" on the occasion. So
Lady Pollexfen willed it. The body was to leave Dupley Walls at
midnight, and be conveyed to the nearest railway station. After a
journey of thirty miles by rail it would be met by another hearse and
mourning-coach by means of which the third and last stage of the
journey would be accomplished.
At a quarter to twelve precisely a hearse and mourning-coach drew up
before the main entrance to Dupley Walls. The door was thrown open,
and Mr. Madgin--solemn, dignified--glided in, followed by a number of
familiars in black. Still led by Mr. Madgin, they trooped up the grand
staircase like so many birds of evil omen hastening to some unholy
feast. Not long were they away. Presently they reappeared, carrying on
their shoulders the burden for which they had come. Slowly and
carefully they descended the stairs, and were just crossing the hall
on their way out, when an imperious voice commanded, them to halt.
There, in the opposite gallery, stood the weird figure of Lady
Pollexfen, her palsied head working awfully, her skinny hands
trembling with nervous excitement, and the gems on her fingers
scintillating in the lamplight. She was attired in her bridal dress of
white satin and lace--a dress which she had not worn for forty-three
years. Her black wig was gaily trimmed with flowers and scraps of
lace, and in one hand she carried a large bouquet. A foot or two
behind her stood Miss Holme.
She had commanded the bearers to halt, and they now stood gazing with
wonder on this strange apparition. "In that shell lies the body of my
husband, Sir John Pollexfen," she began, speaking in clear high-bred
tones that could be plainly heard by everyone there. "He died twenty
years ago this very day. When he died, there was not even one eye to
weep for him, or one heart to mourn for him. All who had known him
were glad that they should never see him more. By a most unholy will
he devised that his body should be kept unburied for the space of
twenty years, and that under whatever roof I might choose to reside he
also should there find a resting-place for the time being; the dead
and the living were, in fact, to keep each other company all that
time. Should I fail in carrying out his commands, the whole of the
property left thus conditionally to me, was to pass away to others. I
have carried out his commands; but here, to-night, in presence of you
strangers, and with my eyes fixed for the last time on that coffin, I
say to you, deliberately and solemnly: Would that I had never been
born rather than have married that man! Would that I had died on my
wedding-day rather than have had children to call him father! Would
that I had died on the day that he died rather than have undertaken
the burden which his wicked commands laid on my shoulders! I hate
myself because I bear his name. I hate this house because it has
sheltered him. Take his wretched body away out of my sight for ever!"
The procession moved slowly forward across the hall, and out through
the great door. A minute or two later, and hearse and coach set out on
their midnight journey through the park. Then the great door was shut
and locked by the solemn butler; and the same moment Lady Pollexfen
staggered, and would have fallen to the ground had not Janet sprung
forward in time to catch her as she fell.